(ICSPR) warns of the grave danger posed by the escalation of assassination crimes and the targeting of residential apartments in Gaza, and calls on the international community to intervene to stop Israeli war crimes

Date: 16 May 2026

Press Release

The International Commission (ICSPR) warns of the grave danger posed by the escalation of assassination crimes and the targeting of residential apartments in Gaza, and calls on the international community to intervene to stop Israeli war crimes.

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) is following with deep concern and condemnation the dangerous and bloody Israeli escalation witnessed in the Gaza Strip this evening, as Israeli occupation warplanes carried out a series of assassination strikes and systematic destruction targeting residential apartments inhabited by civilians in densely populated neighborhoods, most notably Al-Rimal neighborhood, Al-Wahda Street, and other areas. This marks a new episode added to the record of crimes and grave violations committed by the occupation against Palestinian civilians and reflects its complete disregard for the international legal system and for the lives of the civilian population.

Preliminary field information indicates that occupation aircraft targeted, with at least three missiles, an inhabited residential apartment in the “Al-Mu’taz” building located on Abu Al-Kass Street in western Al-Rimal neighborhood, causing massive fires and widespread destruction to the building and neighboring structures. Minutes later, Israeli drones directly targeted a civilian vehicle while it was moving near the “Abu Asi” station on the main Al-Wahda Street adjacent to Yarmouk Stadium, which is crowded with tents sheltering displaced people, in a clear attempt to obstruct rescue and evacuation operations.

According to the preliminary toll, these attacks resulted in the killing of seven people, with some bodies recovered as charred remains from under the rubble and from inside the targeted vehicle, including three women and one child. More than fifty civilians were also injured, most of them residents of the building and civilian passersby, and they were transferred under extremely difficult humanitarian conditions to Al-Saraya Field Hospital and Al-Shifa Medical Complex. In addition, one civil defense worker was injured while trying to extinguish the fire and rescue those trapped.

This horrific crime comes under flimsy pretexts and claims advanced by occupation leaders to justify extrajudicial assassinations and the targeting of resistance leaders, in flagrant disregard for the rules of international humanitarian law and the principles of civilian protection during armed conflict.

The International Commission (ICSPR), while condemning in the strongest terms these renewed massacres, affirms that what occurred constitutes a full-fledged war crime, and reiterates that the deliberate targeting of civilian objects and inhabited residential apartments constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, particularly the principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity. It also stresses that the continuation of the policy of assassinations and indiscriminate bombardment directly threatens all efforts aimed at consolidating the ceasefire and pushes the region toward a new wave of escalation and destruction, for whose legal, political, and humanitarian consequences the Israeli occupation bears full responsibility.

Accordingly, the International Commission (ICSPR) calls for the following:

• The international community and the United Nations to break out of the state of silence and paralysis, assume their moral and legal responsibilities to stop the ongoing bloodshed, and provide urgent international protection for civilians in the Gaza Strip.

• The mediating states guaranteeing the ceasefire agreement to intervene and exert serious pressure on the occupation authorities to stop the crimes of assassination and targeting of civilians, in a manner that preserves de-escalation efforts and prevents their total collapse.

• The High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their legal obligations, especially those stipulated in Article 1 of the Convention regarding ensuring respect for it in all circumstances, and to work to hold occupation leaders accountable for the crimes of assassination and the targeting of civilians and civilian objects.

• The International Criminal Court to open an investigation into the crimes committed today in Al-Rimal neighborhood and Al-Wahda Street, and to add them to the investigation files concerning crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory, in a way that ensures that the perpetrators do not escape punishment.

Ended

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR)